Has the Tinman retired?

[motorman]

Joe it’s been a while since you showed some of your custom work. Are you no longer building your wonderful customs. I really enjoyed looking at your creations over the years. Just seems a while since we saw some of your own handy work. I really hope you haven’t shut up the work shop for good!

[Tinman]

I have been pretty busy doing some remodeling on my home. I built some new door like gates for my privacy fence (as well as a heavy duty fence). Tiled my front entry way and foyer inside and out.  Took down an interior wall. I did a stone wall down one side of my entry foyer.  I took down a bunch of wall paper and painted some rooms.  Put in some free form LED track lighting and some pendant lights. Repainted the exterior of the home. Replaced all the exterior light fixtures. Built a new stone fire pit with a steel inner ring out by the pool. Converted my underwater pool light to LED. Replaced the roof on my tool shed with a new steel roof. Rented a high reach and removed damaged limbs and broken and hanging limbs (from last falls hurricane) and trimmed my oak trees.

Still have to remove some heavy drapes and change some window coverings in a couple of rooms. I need to replace a few more windows with double insulated windows. I also need to start on remodeling the master bathroom.  The last time I did any serious remodeling work on the home was in 1992, so things had become dated and in need of some work.

I have several nearly finished models sitting around. They are either waiting for wheels and/or decals to be installed. My laser printer crapped out about the same time as my inkjet printer died.  The wife is forced to use one of three specific HP all-in-ones by her employer (JP Morgan/Chase) and the new HP all-in-one ruins decals and photos due to curling the finished paper around (so it doesn't have a catch tray that sticks out).  I had to go out and buy a completely different ink jet printer just to do decals (and labels). That's still sitting beside my desk, in the unopened box. I just haven't found the time to set it up.

I still haven't retired and, for example, last week I put in 51 hours on the job. About 10 days ago, I had talked to the company owner about maybe going to 4 days a week or part time. He said we could work something out and we hadn't had any more discussion since then. Yesterday, I was in the office to catch up on some paper work and someone from Human Resources tracked me down (I avoid actually working in or even going to the office like the plague) to let me know I had received a raise.  What the ___? I don't want a raise, I want more time off LOL.

After work, there's the home improvement stuff at home and usual honey-do stuff which all has to come before I get to work on a single Matchbox (at least that's what the wife sez).  I just renewed the license for my little fishing boat and realized I have not even been on the boat since last years registration renewal.  So, last week, I just had to get out on the lake and do some fishing.

[misterpop]

Other than that then not much doing......

[GHOSTHUNTER]

Other than that then not much doing......

Yeah, that lot won't keep him busy

Ghosty.

[numi]

I believe old-timers are never allowed to retire!
Numi

[motorman]

Wow Joe, you appear to have a lot of time on your hands what can I say? All these home improvement jobs you mentioned are higher priority that customising Diecast models. By the sounds of it you seem to be getting in top of the big jobs and hopefully you might be able to free up some time in the not to distant future to finish a few of these projects.

[Tinman]

Wow Joe, you appear to have a lot of time on your hands what can I say? All these home improvement jobs you mentioned are higher priority that customising Diecast models. By the sounds of it you seem to be getting in top of the big jobs and hopefully you might be able to free up some time in the not to distant future to finish a few of these projects.

That's my hope. I've got stuff sitting on my desk I want to finish and stuff I'm dying to start working on. I'm about to take another Holiday as our yearly family reunion is the week of July 15 (an annual event that will probably forever keep me from going to another Gathering in ABQ). I really hope that by fall I can get some time to spend on the models. In the meanwhile, here's a couple of pics of the ones waiting to be finished.

[GHOSTHUNTER]

Hi Joe. As you are soon on holiday, should we start proceedings of my parcel?

Ghosty.

[Tinman]

Hi Joe. As you are soon on holiday, should we start proceedings of my parcel?

Ghosty.

That would be good. I'd like to help out with the cost of the next trip across the pond. Let's move the discussion to email and hammer out the details.

[GHOSTHUNTER]

OK, going there now.

Ghosty.